Who Really Built This Unique Megalithic Monument? | Megalithomania

One of the most interesting stories attached to Kalanish really is intriguing because it talks about like a shining one walking down the avenue to the stones cloaked in feathers in early June 2006 and witnessed the rolling of the moon across the Sleeping Beauty in the background which happens every 18.6 years and it is one of the most magnificent megalithic constructions on the planet. Hey Megalithomaniacs, how you doing? We're just entering the massive stone circle of Kalanish which is also like got a cross design with avenues and rows coming out from the main circle. It's located on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and it is one of the most magnificent megalithic constructions on the planet. It's called the Stonehenge of the North and already you can see some of the stones behind me here. Here we have what's left of the Northern Avenue heading into the main stone circle just up there and it continues with a Southern kind of row and then there's a Western row and then there's an Eastern row coming out from the circles themselves. There's actually a couple of stones just down here that were rediscovered by Gerald Pontin and Margaret Curtis who are the main researchers here and they were kind of buried, they were kind of broken. Many of these were buried deep in peat up until about 1850 or so when they started digging into the peat and found that they were much taller stones than previously realized because people thought it was quite a low stone circle back then. You can just see the shape of this sort of smaller stone here then when it gets sort of bigger as they go up into the main circle. So it's amazing to be back here. The last time I was in Kalanish was way back in June, early June 2006. I came up here with the Antiquarian Society, Stuart Mason and his crew. We did a mega journey in a little mini bus and we spent a few days here and witnessed the rolling of the moon across the Sleeping Beauty in the background which happens every 18.6 years. This fits with traditions that go way way back even to do with Hyperborea which we'll talk about shortly. We're going to show you around look at all some other stone circles in the area and tell us what you think in the comments below. So this is the Northern Avenue we've just walked up. We're walking south just from the car park just over there. You can see this avenue of stones much like we find in Carnac Brittany. Also very similar to what we find in Dartmoor though this is obviously kind of much more larger, megalithic. Then we come into the main kind of stone circle here which has 13 stones with a huge upright you can see just behind over there and then other avenues continue in the cardinal directions pretty much east, south and west. This is a very very impressive site. There was even a cairn in the middle here like a burial spot which wasn't rediscovered until the peak was uncovered in the 1850s. So here we have the cairn which is in like the center of the stone circle. It's believed this may have been built later actually after the main stone circle was put in place. It's believed the circle may have been here first around potentially 3000-2500 BC and then the cairn and then the rest of it may have been added after that although it's unclear. But there is a sequence, a timeline here which only got rediscovered because of the clearance of the peat which went up about at least halfway up the stone so the stone you know where my head is is where the peat went up to at least peat being a kind of soil you get in this part of the world. So this is made of a type of gneiss rock which is found within a mile or so of here and it's the oldest known rock on the planet which is pretty interesting. So they were choosing this very specifically partly I think because of the shape they look like people have got turned to stone we'll talk about the legends about that shortly. We have the western avenue just over there you know the fact that this is they've chosen what is known now as the oldest rock on the planet is very very interesting to me very very interesting. Suggests that they had some understanding obviously of geology and this is obviously the tallest one in the center here we'll just get a close-up of that because that is pretty amazing. We have the cairn behind it obviously this is the tallest one right almost in the center of the main stone circle here you see the top of that is very similar to the ones in Orkney with the angle on it like that that's very impressive appears to be the same builders really if you think about it very similar style some of the pointy stones some are feminine some appear masculine so this stone is quite interesting this stone although it stands outside the main circle this is just northeast of the main circle it may have marked a special moon rise seen from this stone the moon rose above the other stone which is over in the opposite corner which you can just kind of see behind those stones over there this was every 18.5 years so this could be one of the moon markers of the Calanese stone circle whereas this stone over here which isn't actually part of the avenue or the circle this is really intriguing this was set here by the Victorians in concrete although we don't know where it originally stood it said it was broken by a drunk waiting for a boat which is quite an interesting little story in its own right one of the most interesting stories attached to Calanese is one that we feature in our book The Giants of Stonehenge in Ancient Britain and it really is intriguing because it talks about like a shining one and this was written by Jennifer Westwood in the Albion A Guide to Legendary Britain and it states until recently it was believed that a sunrise or midsummer's day the shining one walked along the avenue he's coming heralded by the call of the cuckoo the bird of turn nanog the celtic land of youth now just jump into this actually one of the ancient lost lands that we talk about in the book as well and it could be related to atlantean traditions and it could also be related to high brazil or other other lands like lyonnaise that have been lost around the coasts of britain another tradition is that a priest king who came to the island bringing with him not only the stones but black men to raise them he was attended by other priests and the whole company wore robes of birdskins and feathers it really is intriguing because it talks about like a shining one walking down the avenue to the stones and he's cloaked in feathers and he has a team with him and they're called they're described as being black now what that means we don't know we don't know whether that's to do with them being dark-skinned or whether that's actually a reference to the black porters an ancient tradition in wales often giants these are but whoever they were they were different to the people here it was a tall gentleman fair-skinned bearded with a cloak of feathers so it sounds almost like quetzalcoatl but there's other ideas it could actually be a reference to the shining ones the watchers or the anarchy of the ancient bible lands because there's good evidence if we look in the book of enoch which describes a group of travelers coming over with the angels or watchers with enoch himself actually analyzing and looking through portals or in between stones in a northerly latitude and they they've gone to great northerly latitudes bought strings or measurement devices to measure the sites and survey but also it could be a representation of these actual people coming to britain and he arrived on water so he came on like a raft which is very similar to the descriptions we get in mexico and south america so if there's a connection there i don't know and he some there's also a connection with this tradition to do with the cuckoo the call of the cuckoo and this could be the feathers he was wearing it could be part of a shamanic tradition but we have these feathered robes in the bible lands itself their descriptions of them where some of the angels or watchers are wearing them and they're kind of glistening in the light there are more legends of the stones as well some interesting ones that gerald ponting have put in his calamity wooden book one was that a gaelic speaking cow came to the stones during a famine to give milk to everybody but a witch used a bottomless bucket to milk her dry the cow was not seen again so where that's like a fertility sort of legend associated with this and i just want to expand on the shining one story because several legends do talk about this the first cuckoo of spring which traditionally gave its first call from the stones and it was heralded by the mysterious shining one who was said to have walked up the avenue at mid-summer sunrise so this is very much potentially it could have been originally a summer solstice sunrise site or winter solstice sunset site wrens always flew alongside the chief priest who wore a cloak with colored feathers now this is the shining one we talked about and his fellow priests were supposed to have originally brought the stones to lewis in many ships now this is much like the tradition of the giants bringing the stones from africa to ireland to build stonehenge eventually they then got moved from ireland to salisbury plain and so there's all these kind of parallel stories linking up these ancient sites another legend talks about the story of saint kieran who literally petrified pagan giants who are meeting here to oppose christianity so again we have the giant connection related to this particular site and we know that there are other traditions of giants found on kalanish which we feature in our book the giants of stonehenge and ancient britain we have another giant tradition brought to us by donald alexander mckenzie in his giant law of scotland and it states the kiewitsch was a giant and a real hero a man not only of great size but great dignity in the island of egg the kiewitsch lives in a cave he's still remembered in barra on the north side of loch lomond a similar hero was associated with the circular fortress on a promontory fort this was called the giant's castle and so even here we have stories legends of giants not only associated with kalanish like because they got turned to stone by saint kieran but also we have the stories of um like a legendary dignified giant who existed in these parts and lived in a cave possibly you know one of the last survivors of the old giants of albion in the distance over there we have that is the sleeping beauty which is towards the southeast you can just see the shape between the two stones and this is where the the moon kind of rolls across the landscape it doesn't properly set it kind of sets between different peaks last one was in early june 2006 the next one will be in a few years time which we're going to come up here for we're just walking down the eastern avenue here now we're here pretty much for the equinox so this could be an equinox aligned kind of avenue here or row really it's just one row it's not an avenue and that's really interesting and actually it was this side here the eastern side this stone here on the end is the one that gerald ponting rediscovered back in 77 and it was re-erected in 82 so you know things are being discovered mainly because of the peat but still very impressive and that's just looking back at the site from the eastern avenue it's very very impressive and you can see the shaping on some of the stones it looks like a bit like orkney where the angled tops are being found here and actually the stone circle inside the main circle of 13 stones with a big one in the center is a type a flattened circle which was so basically slightly flattened on one side so this proves it was part of the same neolithic elite the same designers who built many of the stone circles in ancient britain these avenues although it's debated could have been added a little bit later after the main circle was complete although it could have been one of the original part of the original designs quite unusual to find like almost like a pagan cross like a crucifix in a megalithic site like this although we do find some examples in europe like this it's been an absolute delight to come here to witness calanis stones the sun's gonna set in a couple of hours we've got some aerial views so you can actually see it from the air see how impressive the whole landscape is here and the placement so we're very pleased we're very very happy we changed our plans to come for the equinox at the last minute because of the weather and look at it it's absolutely perfect so we've had a look at the stones we talked about some legends we're going to go now finish up here and then we're going to go now and look at some other sites calanis two and three and there's another one very interesting site where a lightning strike was said to have hit and we're going to go and investigate that as part of our trip as well as looking at the tallest stone in scotland which is on this island and a couple of brocks iron age brocks amongst some other sites so i hope you enjoyed our little journey around calanis stone circle well stone circle and stone cross you know from above and we'll see you at the next site so we're now heading to calanis two this is just over the way from calanis which you can see over there on the hilltop water between it and sheep everywhere and we're just going to go and check this out one of the stones is over 10 feet tall and there's five left and several have fallen you've got the sun and the moon on the gate and then you've got people moving the stones kind of made into metal this is really smart all the way around you can see them there they're like moving the megaliths so this is really beautifully done it wasn't for jj we wouldn't have spotted that and this is the gate into not calanis one over there on the hill but calanis two over on this hill which we're just about to head to now so it's an amazing experience at the main calanis site the cruciform stone circle we're now going to another hill very close by about half a mile away this is calanis two it's got a specific gaelic name which i find it difficult to say but i'll pronounce it properly in a moment and this is quite important it had probably nine maybe ten stones it could have had more five are standing and there's a 10 foot stone here so quite a large one and so even though some of the stones have fallen or buried it's still really important it's surrounded by kind of peat probably would have been slightly covered in peat like the main calanis site but yeah again this is one of the many sites here on the isle of lewis linked with the calanis complex some amazing bullocks next to calanis two there's the giant standing stone and the five remaining stones so you can check this out let's go and have a closer look there's two here very close together actually these two so was this an alignment we'll check out that in a moment beautiful stones the oldest type of rock on the planet apparently here's one of the fallen ones just here very interesting almost looks like it's got cut marks on this one over there it looks like a shaped stone that one that's very interesting so this is definitely a stone circle no doubt about that two stones very close together there some fallen stones and look an animal like almost like a human figure shaped stone over there in the distance which we're going to have a look at in a moment absolutely stunning scenery if we just go around this side just over the water there up on that hill we have the main calanis site absolutely amazing so these two these two big stones which are very close together between them is heading directly north much like the main double avenue like all this the avenue that goes north at calanis which is just over there it's almost like mimicking that like not really an avenue but two stones close together obviously this one here is very interesting look at that let's get a closer look at that that is very pointy very similar to some of the stones we have up in orkney very thin look how thin that is that's amazing look at the point on that stunning we're going to go over near this bullock this could end up bad i'm not sure but he seems quite he's like the classic the classic hairy bullocks you get up on calanis up on the isle of lewis he's having a good old scratch he's really going for that he really wants that scratch he's got an itch from hell by the looks of it so i've got this gorgeous stone here a gorgeous beast next to it oh hello and then we've got this which is very unusual stone it's almost like this is almost like shaped i mean it's like that is not natural that is clearly a shaped stone it's almost like a humanoid abstract artistic figure whether that has some that's pretty much in the south and i wonder if that has any meaning because you know depending on where you're orienting orienting that from that is not it's like looking over towards the sleeping beauty mountain range in the back which you can't really see it's partly covered it's actually just over there just to the right of the stone that's the sleeping beauty in the back there so that is very odd let's have a quick look around it i mean some people said in the early antiquarians there was actually some kind of runic or ogham carving on some of these stones now apparently that was disputed because it was later realized it was just the natural nature of the stone kind of creates shapes and what appears to be letters but this does look certainly anamorphic to me we've got jj in the background they're looking awesome as usual and yeah very impressive so it's a real delight to have a chance to come to the second stone circle part of the kalanish complex so in the middle here which you can sort of see just about i've got to be careful it's really marshy peaty got stones all over the place trousers are getting soaked actually and this was actually a can much like a burial can like we find in the middle of the main kalanish site with let's look into the north the main kalanish site looking amazing over there and so it does suggest that this is certainly the same builders the same system complex really as the previous main site so we've got some serious beastage going on here beauty and the beasts as you can see from this particular shot an absolutely stunning view of the stone circle with kalanish in the background as well it's right behind jj there here we are kalanish three or on this sign it's called something else gnoc filibir big so this is the gaelic name for these sites they do have different names each of them so there's some really beautiful sites in this whole area we've seen kalanish one the main crucifix megalithic site we've seen kalanish two and now we're going to see kalanish three we're going to see lots more sites on our journey around the isle of lewis but this is a really important one i really wanted to check this out so we're now just heading up a hill to kalanish three we've just seen the sign we're parked up we're going to check this out obviously part of the same complex between here and kalanish one which you can still see over there it's kalanish two now these obviously all these different gaelic names given to them but this is an interesting one it's one that gets most visited really because you can kind of see it from the side of the road and there's even a famous pop band made a video here so we're just approaching the kalanish three site with a very interesting gaelic name many of the stones here are still standing in its own right this is an impressive stone circle but because it's in the shadow of the main kalanish site it gets overlooked by many visitors but we're here because we're megalithomaniacs and we want to check this out just over in the distance there you've got kalanish two which we just visited then just over there behind that tall stone further in the distance we have the main kalanish site let's take a look around this jj's here already beautiful shadows i really think these shadows were part of the whole design of these sites play you know to give accurate calendar readings amongst other things it's like a shadow play around the year this is absolutely beautiful up here and all across the landscape you're going to get different kind of meanings god some of these stones are just alive it feels like absolutely amazing look at these so these are kind of interlinked almost i've just flown the drone from kalanish to site two to site three here so you get a sense of the whole landscape that these sites were actually constructed in it's made of that gneiss and so it's got very crystalline quality about some of the stones the shapes some of them are reminiscent of avery so we have this kind of feminine mixed with the masculine this one looks like it's broken but it could be shaped because many of them as we've seen already do appear to be shaped in one way or another and so there is stone carving going on here not just placing them quarrying and placing them there's actually a whole other thing taking place here at these sites in the kalanish complex we have a mound over there i think that's natural rocky outcrop what a beautiful place this is just stunning there's no one around we're so lucky and uh you know this is like a peak time year a lot of people come up here for the equinox we've seen many camper vans people camping because they want to experience the equinox we know it's not happening this year at stonehenge so people are going to different places and it almost seems like you know it is aligned in some ways to the equinox because there is an east west alignment coming out from the main site which you can see directly above those two stones in the distance where the clouds are kind of forming over and there's a real mystical thing about this and this is almost aligned east from that so this could be an equinox site that we're standing in right now so it's an absolute treat to be here at kalanish 3 it's the third circle we've checked out there's more there's kalanish 4 goes up to like 12 or 18 or something like this some are obscure some are just standing stones some are being destroyed but we're going to check out specific ones which we think are important uh the first three definitely there's also kalanish 11 and kalanish 8 the reason we want to look at these one of them is the site where the lightning strike hit the ground they think the stone circle may have been built around that or maybe even attracted the lightning and we know there's this whole sowers of thunder mythos related to the giants and you know giants are associated with these sites as well there's legends of them there's stories of them they go round and round at different places so this is just one of those places out of many that are related to these mystical qualities the sowers of thunder attracting lightning and also the giants so absolutely fascinating place we managed to time it beautifully for the equinox with stunning weather hopefully this will continue as we explore the rest of the island so this is kalanish 3 and we hope you enjoyed our little visit here